Compassion

Part 1:

Only compassion is therapeutic -
because all that is ill in man is because of lack of love. All that
is wrong with man is somewhere associated with love. He has not been
able to love, or he has not been able to receive love. He has not
been able to share his being. That′s the misery. That creates all
sorts of complexes inside.
Those wounds inside can surface in many ways: they can become
physical illness, they can become mental illness - but deep down man
suffers from lack of love. Just as food is needed for the body, love
is needed for the soul. The body cannot survive without food, and
the soul cannot survive without love. In fact, without love the soul
is never born - there is no question of its survival.
You simply think that you have a soul; you believe that you have a
soul because of your fear of death. But you have not known unless
you have loved. Only in love does one come to feel that one is more
than the body, more than the mind.
That′s why I say compassion is therapeutic. What is compassion?
Compassion is the purest form of love. Sex is the lowest form of
love, compassion the highest form of love. In sex the contact is
basically physical; in compassion the contact is basically
spiritual. In love, compassion and sex are both mixed, the physical
and the spiritual are both mixed. Love is midway between sex and
compassion.
You can call compassion prayer also. You can call compassion
meditation also. The highest form of energy is compassion. The word
′compassion′ is beautiful: half of it is ′passion′ - somehow passion
has become so refined that it is no more like passion. It has become
compassion.
In sex, you use the other, you reduce the other to a means, you
reduce the other to a thing. That′s why in a sexual relationship you
feel guilty. That guilt has nothing to do with religious teachings;
that guilt is deeper than religious teachings. In a sexual
relationship as such you feel guilty. You feel guilty because you
are reducing a human being to a thing, to a commodity to be used and
thrown away.
That′s why in sex you also feel a sort of bondage - you are also
being reduced to a thing. And when you are a thing your freedom
disappears, because your freedom exists only when you are a person.
The more you are a person, the more free; the more you are a thing,
the less free.
The furniture in your room is not free. If you leave the room locked
and you come after many years, the furniture will be in the same
place, in the same way; it will not arrange itself in a new way. It
has no freedom. But if you leave a man in the room, you will not
find him the same - not even the next day - not even the next
moment. You cannot find the same man again.
Says old Heraclitus, "You cannot step in the same river twice". You
cannot come across the same man again. It is impossible to meet the
same man twice - because man is a river, continuously flowing. You
never know what is going to happen. The future remains open.
For a thing, future is closed. A rock will remain a rock, will
remain a rock. It has no potentiality for growth. It cannot change,
it cannot evolve. A man never remains the same. May fall back, may
go ahead; may go into hell or into heaven - but never remains the
same. Goes on moving, this way or that.
When you have a sexual relationship with somebody, you have reduced
that somebody to a thing. And in reducing him you have reduced
yourself also to a thing, because it is a mutual compromise that ′I
allow you to reduce me to a thing, you allow me to reduce you to a
thing. I allow you to use me, you allow me to use you. We use each
other. We both have become things.′
That′s why... watch two lovers: when they have not yet settled. the
romance is still alive, the honeymoon has not ended and you will see
two persons throbbing with life, ready to explode - ready to explode
the unknown. And then watch a married couple, the husband and the
wife, and you will see two dead things, two graveyards, side by side
- helping each other to remain dead, forcing each other to remain
dead. That is the constant conflict of the marriage. Nobody wants to
be reduced to a thing!
Sex is the lowest form of that energy ′X′. If you are religious,
call it ′God′; if you are scientific, call it ′X′. This energy, X,
can become love. When it becomes love, then you start respecting the
other person. Yes. sometimes you use the other person, but you feel
thankful for it. You never say thank-you to a thing. When you are in
love with a woman and you make love to her, you say thank-you. When
you make love to your wife, have you ever said thank-you? No, you
take it for granted. Has your wife said thank-you to you ever?
Maybe, many years before, you can remember some time when you were
just undecided, were just trying, courting, seducing each other -
maybe. But once you were settled, has she said thank-you to you for
anything? You have been doing so many things for her, she has been
doing so many things for you, you are both living for each other -
but gratitude has disappeared.
In love, there is gratitude, there is a deep gratefulness. You know
that the other is not a thing. You know that the other has a
grandeur, a personality, a soul, an individuality. In love you give
total freedom to the other. Of course, you give and you take; it is
a give-and-take relationship - but with respect.
In sex, it is a give-and-take relationship with no respect. In
compassion, you simply give. There is no idea anywhere in your mind
to get anything back - you simply share. Not that nothing comes!
millionfold it is returned, but that is just by the way, just a
natural consequence. There is no hankering for it.
In love, if you give something, deep down you go on expecting that
it should be returned. If it is not returned, you feel complaining.
You may not say so, but in a thousand and one ways it can be
inferred that you are grumbling, that you are feeling that you have
been cheated. Love seems to be a subtle bargain.
In compassion, you simply give. In love, you are thankful because
the other has given something to you. In compassion, you are
thankful because the other has taken something from you; you are
thankful because the other has not rejected you. You had come with
energy to give, you had come with many flowers to share, and the
other allowed you, the other was receptive. You are thankful because
the other was receptive.
Compassion is the highest form of love. Much comes back -
millionfold, I say - but that is not the point, you don′t hanker for
it. If it is not coming there is no complaint about it. If it is
coming you are simply surprised! If it is coming, it is
unbelievable. If it is not coming there is no problem - you had
never given your heart to somebody for any bargain. You simply
shower because you have. You have so much that if you don′t shower
you will become burdened. Just like a cloud full of rainwater has to
shower. And next time when a cloud is showering watch silently, and
you will always hear, when the cloud has showered and the earth has
absorbed, you will always hear the cloud saying to the earth
"Thank-you." The earth helped the cloud to unburden.
When a flower has bloomed, it has to share its fragrance to the
winds. It is natural! It is not a bargain, it is not a business - it
is simply natural! The flower is full of fragrance - what to do? If
the flower keeps the fragrance to itself then the flower will feel
very, very tense, in deep anguish. The greatest anguish in life is
when you cannot express, when you cannot communicate, when you
cannot share. The poorest man is he who has nothing to share, or who
has something to share but has lost the capacity, the art, of how to
share it - then a man is poor.
The sexual man is very poor. The loving man is richer comparatively.
The man of compassion is the richest - he is at the top of the
world. He has no confinement, no limitation. He simply gives and
goes on his way. He does not even wait for you to say a thank-you.
With tremendous love he shares his energy.
This is what I call therapeutic.
Christians believe that Jesus did many miracles. I cannot see him
doing any miracle. The miracle was his compassion. If anything
happened, it happened without his doing it. If anything ever happens
in the highest plane of being, it always happens without any effort.
He moved; many sorts of people came to him. He was there like a
tremendous pool of energy - anybody who was ready to share, shared.
Miracles happened! He was therapeutic. He was one of the greatest
healers the world has ever known. Buddha, or Mahavir, or Krishna -
they are all great healers, on different levels. Yes, you cannot
find in Buddha′s life any miracle of healing an ill person, or
healing a blind man, or bringing a dead person to life. You will be
surprised: Was Jesus′ compassion more than Buddha′s? What happened?
Why were many people not healed through Buddha′s energy? No. It is
not a question of more or less. Buddha′s compassion functioned on a
different level. He had a different type of audience and a different
type of people around him from Jesus.
It always happens - almost always - I go on watching: continuously a
stream of people comes to me from the West - they never ask anything
about their bodies. They don′t come to me and say, "I have a
constant headache. Osho, help me, do something!" Or, "My eyes are
weak," or, "My concentration is not good," or, "My memory is being
lost" - no, never. But Indians come and always something of the
physical they bring. Mm? They have had an upset stomach for many
years - "Osho, do something!"
Almost always I feel: Why? What has happened to India? Why do these
people come only for some bodily, physical problems? They have only
those problems. A poor country, a very poor country, has no
spiritual problems. A rich country has spiritual problems; a poor
country has physical problems.
Buddha′s time in India was the golden age. That was the time for
India at its peak. The country was rich, tremendously rich,
affluent. The whole world was poor, and India was very rich. The
people coming to Buddha were bringing spiritual problems. Yes, they
were also bringing wounds, but they were spiritual wounds.
Jesus moved in a very poor country, lived in a very poor country.
The people who were coming to him had no spiritual problems, in
fact, because to have a spiritual problem you have to attain to a
certain standard of living. Otherwise, your problems go on being of
the lower levels. A poor man has a problem.
Just a few days before, one of my relatives was here. For one month
he was here, meditating, doing things. And then on the last day I
was hoping he would ask something meaningful. What did he ask? He
asked that his son is not doing well. Living one month here,
listening to me for one month, this was the only question that came
to his mind: his son is not doing well. He drives a taxi, and they
have purchased such a car that every day there is some problem or
other - "Osho, do something!" I am not a car mechanic! So I told
him, "Sell that car!" He said, "Nobody will purchase it, so do
something!"
When people are poor, their problems are of the world. When people
are rich, their problems are of a higher quality. Only an affluent
country can be really spiritual; a poor country cannot be. I am not
saying that a poor man cannot be - yes, a poor man can be,
exceptions are there - but a poor country cannot be. A poor country,
on the whole, thinks in terms of money, medicine, house, car, this
and that. And it is natural, it is logical!
Jesus moved in a very poor world. People were seeking their own
solutions. Many were helped - not that Jesus was helping - they were
helped. And Jesus says again and again: "It is your faith that has
healed you." When you have faith, compassion can pour into you. When
you have faith, you are open to compassion. Buddha did miracles, but
those miracles are of the invisible. Mahavir did miracles, but those
miracles are of the invisible. You cannot see them - they can only
be seen by the person to whom they have happened.
But compassion is always therapeutic; whatsoever your level, it
helps you. Compassion is love purified - so much so that you simply
give and don′t ask anything in return.
Buddha used to say to his disciples, "After each meditation, be
compassionate - immediately - because when you meditate, love grows,
the heart becomes full. After each meditation, feel compassion for
the whole world so that you share your love and you release the
energy into the atmosphere and that energy can be used by others."
I would also like to say that to you: After each meditation, when
you are celebrating, have compassion. Just feel that your energy
should go and help people in whatsoever ways they need it. Just
release it! You will be unburdened, you will feel very relaxed, you
will feel very calm and quiet, and the vibrations that you have
released will help many. End your meditations always with
compassion.
And compassion is unconditional. You cannot have compassion only for
those who are friendly towards you, only for those who are related
to you.
It happened in China: When
Bodhidharma went to China, a man came to
him. He said, "I have followed your teachings: I meditate and then I
feel compassion for the whole universe - not only for men, but for
animals, for rocks and rivers also. But there is one problem: I
cannot feel compassion for my neighbor. No - it is impossible! So
you please tell me: can I exclude my neighbor from my compassion? I
include the whole existence, known, unknown, but can I exclude my
neighbor? - because it is very difficult, impossible. I cannot feel
compassion for him."Bodhidharma said, "Then forget about meditation, because if
compassion excludes anybody then it is no more there."
Compassion is all-inclusive - intrinsically all-inclusive. So if you
cannot feel compassion for your neighbor~ then forget all about
meditation - because it has nothing to do with somebody in
particular. It has something to do with your inner state. Be
compassion! unconditionally, undirected, unaddressed. Then you
become a healing force into this world of misery.
Jesus says: "Love thy neighbor as thyself" - again and again. And he
also says: "Love thy enemy as thyself." And if you analyze both the
sentences together, you will come to find that the neighbor and the
enemy are almost always the same person.

Part 2:

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" and "Love thy enemy as thyself."
What does he mean? He simply means: don′t have any barriers for your
compassion, for your love. As you love yourself, love the whole
existence - because in the ultimate analysis the whole existence is
yourself. It is you - reflected in many mirrors. It is you - it is
not separate from you. Your neighbor is just a form of you; your
enemy is also a form of you. Whatsoever you come across, you come
across yourself. You may not recognize because you are not very
alert; you may not be able to see yourself in the other, but then
something is wrong with your vision, something is wrong with your
eyes.

Compassion is therapeutic. Could you comment on the word
′compassion′, compassion for oneself and compassion for the other?

Yes, you have to understand that to be compassionate one has to
have compassion for oneself in the first place. If you don′t love
yourself you will never be able to love anybody else. If you are not
kind to yourself you cannot be kind to anybody else. Your so-called
saints who are so very hard on themselves are just pretenders that
they are kind to others. It is not possible. Psychologically it is
impossible. If you cannot be kind to yourself, how can you be kind
to others?
Whatsoever you are with yourself you are with others. Let that be a
basic dictum. If you hate yourself you will hate others - and you
have been taught to hate yourself. Nobody has ever said to you,
"Love yourself!" The very idea seems absurd - loving oneself? The
very idea makes no sense - loving oneself? We always think that to
love one needs somebody else. But if you don′t learn it with
yourself you will not be able to practise it with others.
You have been told, constantly conditioned, that you are not of any
worth. From every direction you have been shown, you have been told,
that you are unworthy, that you are not what you should be, that you
are not accepted as you are. There are many shoulds hanging over
your head - and those shoulds are almost impossible to fulfill. And
when you cannot fulfill them, when you fall short, you feel
condemned. A deep hatred arises in you about yourself. How can you
love others? So full of hatred, where are you going to find love? So
you only pretend, you only show that you are in love. Deep down you
are not in love with anybody - you cannot be. Those pretensions are
good for a few days, then the color disappears, then reality asserts
itself.
Every love-affair is on the rocks. Sooner or later, every
love-affair becomes very poisoned. And how does it become so
poisoned? Both pretend that they are loving, both go on saying that
they love. The father says he loves the child; the child says he
loves the father. The mother says she loves her daughter, and the
daughter goes on saying the same thing. Brothers say they love each
other. The whole world talks about love, sings about love - and can
you find any other place so loveless? Not an iota of love exists -
and mountains of talk! Himalayas of poetry about love.
It seems all these poetries are just compensations. Because we
cannot love, we have somehow to believe through poetry, singing,
that we love. What we miss in life we put in poetry. What we go on
missing in life, we put in the film, in the novel. Love is
absolutely absent, because the first step has not been taken yet.
The first step is: accept yourself as you are; drop all shoulds.
Don′t carry any ought on your heart! You are not to be somebody
else; you are not expected to do something which doesn′t belong to
you - you are just to be yourself. Relax! and just be yourself. Be
respectful to your individuality and have the courage to sign your
own signature. Don′t go on copying others signatures.
You are not expected to become a Jesus or a Buddha or a Ramakrishna
- you are simply expected to become yourself. It was good that
Ramakrishna never tried to become somebody else, so he became
Ramakrishna. It was good that Jesus never tried to become like
Abraham or Moses, so he became Jesus. It is good that Buddha never
tried to become a Patanjali or Krishna - that′s why he became a
Buddha.
When you are not trying to become anybody else, then you simply
relax - then a grace arises. Then you are full of grandeur,
splendor, harmony - because then there is no conflict! nowhere to
go, nothing to fight for; nothing to force, enforce upon yourself
violently. You become innocent.
In that innocence you will feel compassion and love for yourself.
You will feel so happy with yourself that even if God comes and
knocks at your door and says, "Would you like to become somebody
else?" you will say, "Have you gone mad?! I am perfect! Thank-you,
but never try anything like that - I am perfect as I am."
The moment you can say to God, "I am perfect as I am, I am happy as
I am, "this is what in the East we call shraddha - trust; then you
have accepted yourself and in accepting yourself you have accepted
your creator. Denying yourself you deny your creator.
If you go and see a painting of Picasso′s and you say, "This is
wrong and that is wrong, and this color should have been this way,"
you are denying Picasso. The moment you say, "I should be like
this," you are trying to improve upon God. You are saying, "You
committed blunders - I should have been like this, and you have made
me like this?" You are trying to improve upon God. It is not
possible. Your struggle is in vain - you are doomed to failure.
And the more you fail, the more you hate. The more you fail, the
more you feel condemned. The more you fail, the more you feel
yourself impotent. And out of this hatred, impotency, how can
compassion arise? Compassion arises when you are perfectly grounded
in your being. You say, "Yes, this is the way I am." You have no
ideals to fulfill. And immediately fulfillment starts happening!
The roses bloom so beautifully because they are not trying to become
lotuses. And the lotuses bloom so beautifully because they have not
heard the legends about other flowers. Everything in nature goes so
beautifully in accord, because nobody is trying to compete with
anybody, nobody is trying to become anybody else. Everything is the
way it is.
Just see the point! Just be yourself and remember you cannot be
anything else, whatsoever you do. All effort is futile. You have to
be just yourself.
There are only two ways. One is: rejecting, you can remain the same;
condemning. you can remain the same; or: accepting, surrendering,
enjoying, delighting, you can be the same. Your attitude can be
different, but you are going to remain the way you are, the person
you are. Once you accept, compassion arises. And then you start
accepting others!
Have you watched it? - it is very difficult to live with a saint,
very difficult. You can live with a sinner; you cannot live with a
saint - because a saint will be condemning you continuously: by his
gesture, by his eyes, the way he will look at you, the way he will
talk at you. A saint never talks with you - he talks at you. He
never just looks at you; he has always some ideals in his eyes,
clouding. He never sees you. He has something far away and he goes
on comparing you with it - and, of course, you always fall short.
His very look makes you a sinner. It is very difficult to live with
a saint - because he does not accept himself, how can he accept you?
He has many things in him; jarring notes he feels he has to go
beyond. Of course, he sees the same things in you in a magnified
way.
But to me only that person is a saint who has accepted himself, and
in his acceptance has accepted the whole world. To me, that state of
mind is what sainthood is: the state of total acceptance. And that
is healing, therapeutic. Mm? - just being with somebody who accepts
you totally is therapeutic. You will be healed.
As life is.... I divide it in three parts: breakfast, Lunch, supper.
The childhood is the breakfast-time. And as it happens if you have
not been given your breakfast today, you will feel very, very
hungry, out of all proportion, at lunchtime. And if you have missed
lunch also, then of course at supper you will be almost mad. Love is
food - that′s why I divide life in three: breakfast, lunch, supper.
Love is food: food for the soul. When a child sucks at his mother′s
breast for the first time, he is sucking two things, not only milk -
milk is going into his body and love is going into his soul. Love is
invisible, just as soul is invisible; milk is visible just as body
is visible. If you have eyes to see, you can see two things together
dripping into the child′s being from the mother′s breast. Milk is
just the visible part of love; love is the invisible part of milk -
the warmth, the love, the compassion, the blessing.
If the child has missed at his breakfast, then when he is young he
will be too needy for love - and that creates trouble. Then he will
be too impatient for love - that creates trouble. Then he will be in
such a hurry for love - that creates trouble. Because love grows
very slowly, it needs patience. And the more you are in a hurry, the
more is the possibility that you will miss.
Have you watched it in yourself and in others? The people who are
too much in need of love always suffer, because they always feel
that nobody is going to fulfill them. In fact, nobody is going to be
their mother again. In a mother-child relationship, nothing was
expected from the child. What can a child do? - helpless. He cannot
return anything. At the most he can smile - that′s all - or follow
with his eyes where the mother is going - that′s all. Small,
beautiful gestures - but nothing else can he do. The mother has to
give, the child has to receive.
If at breakfast-time you have missed this, then you will be looking
for a woman who can be your mother. Now, a woman is looking for a
lover, not for a son - trouble is bound to be there. Unless by
chance, by accident, you can find some woman who is looking for a
son - then things will settle; then two illnesses will fit together.
It always happens: a pessimist always finds an optimist to fit; a
sadist always finds a masochist to fit; a dominating person always
finds one who is in need of being dominated, then they fit. You
cannot find two masochists living together, never. I have watched
thousands of couples: up to now I have not been able to come to a
single couple in which both the partners are sadists or both the
partners are masochists. It is impossible to live together - they
have to fit. Only opposites fit, and people always fall in love with
the opposite.
If you can meet a woman who is in search of a son... that too is
ugly, that too is ill, because a woman naturally should be seeking a
lover, not a child. And this is the problem, and the problem becomes
more complicated: even if she is looking for a son, she is unaware
of it; and even if you are looking for a mother, you are unaware of
it. In fact, if a woman tries to mother you, you will feel hurt. You
will say, "What are you doing? Am I a child?" And you are looking
for a mother. Thousands, millions of people are looking for a
mother.
That′s why man seems so much interested in women′s breasts -
otherwise there is no need to be so much interested in women′s
breasts. The interest simply shows that in your childhood, at your
breakfast-time, you have missed something. It continues, it hovers
on your mind, it haunts you. Breasts are for breakfast time. Now why
do you go on thinking and painting - mm?...
Just a few days before, a painter was here and he brought a few of
his paintings; just breasts and breasts. He became a sannyasin so I
said to him, "Now at least you start to grow a little. This is
childish!" And he has won many prizes; he is a world famous painter.
His paintings have been exhibited all over the world: in New York,
in London, in Paris. in Berlin, and everywhere. And he has been
appreciated very much. Of course, must have been appreciated by
other children! There is no point in it.
So I told him, "Do something else - breakfast time is over! You are
old enough to do something else."
He said, "I will try."
Now he sends a painting in which I am sitting in the middle - and
breasts and breasts all around. So now I am also part! He has tried
his best, but difficult to get out of it.
Watch deep down, because it is nothing of your responsibility, it is
nothing to do with you - you cannot change your mother now. It
happened as it happened - but you can become conscious. You can
become conscious of all these things inside. And by becoming
conscious a miracle happens. If you become conscious of these
things, they start dropping. They can cling to you only in deep
unconsciousness. A profound consciousness begins to be a
transforming force.
So just become conscious! If you have some childish attitudes
towards love, become conscious, find out, search deep. And just by
becoming conscious, they drop. So nothing else is needed. Not that
first you have to become conscious and then you have to ask "What to
do now?" The moment you become conscious they disappear - because by
becoming conscious you are becoming adult.
A child is not conscious. A child lives in a deep unconsciousness.
By becoming conscious you are becoming adult, mature, so all that
was clinging in your unconsciousness will disappear. Just as you
bring light in a room and the darkness disappears; bring
consciousness deep in your heart.
Then there are people who miss their lunch also. Then in their old
age they become what you call ′dirty old people′. hen in their old
age they continuously think of sex and nothing else. They may not
talk about sex in a direct way - they may start talking against sex
- but they will talk about sex. Their being against makes no
difference.
You go and listen to the so-called saints in India, and you will
always find them continuously talking against sex and praising
brahmacharya. These people have even missed their lunch. Now
suppertime has come - and they are mad. Now they know that death is
coming any moment. And when death is approaching near, and time is
disappearing from their hands, if they become neurotic it seems
natural.
These neurotic people have stories in the old scriptures that when
they meditate, apsaras - beautiful women from heaven - descend.
Naked they dance around them. Why should they do such a thing? Who
is bothered about an old man sitting in the Himalayas meditating -
who is bothered? dead almost - who is bothered? Those apsaras from
heaven, they can find better people.
In fact, so many people are chasing apsaras, how can they find time
to chase rishis, these so-called saints? No, it has nothing to do
with apsaras or with heaven or anything. It is just that these
people have missed breakfast and lunch both. And by suppertime their
imagination is playing tremendous games with them. It is their
imagination, starved imagination.
You do one thing: you just go on a fast for three weeks, and then
everywhere you will start seeing food - everywhere! Even you may see
a full moon rushing into the sky and you will say it looks like
bread, a chapati. That′s how it will happen. You will start
projecting, your imagination will be playing games with you.
If this happens, then compassion never arises. Move slowly, alert,
watching, be loving. If you are sexual I don′t say drop sex: I say
make it more alert, make it more prayerful, make it more profound,
so that it can become love. If you are loving, then make it even
more grateful; bring deeper gratitude, joy, celebration, prayer to
it, meditation to it, so that it can become compassion.
Unless compassion has happened to you, don′t think that you have
lived rightly or that you have lived at all. Compassion is the
flowering. And when compassion happens to one person, millions are
healed. Whosoever comes around him is healed. Compassion is
therapeutic.

Part 3:

Osho, what is compassion?

Anand Shama,
We know what passion is hence it is not very difficult to understand what
compassion may be. Passion means a state of biological fever - it is hot. You
are almost possessed by biological, unconscious energies. You are no longer your
own master, you are just a slave.
Compassion means you have transcended biology, you have transcended physiology.
You are no more a slave, you have become a master. Now you function consciously.
You are not driven, pulled and pushed by unconscious forces, you can decide what
you want to do with your energies. You are totally free. Then the same energy
that becomes passion is transformed into compassion.
Passion is lust, compassion is love. Passion is desire, compassion is
desirelessness. Passion is greed, compassion is sharing. Passion wants to use
the other as a means, compassion respects the other as an end unto himself or
herself. Passion keeps you tethered to the earth, to the mud, and you never
become a lotus. Compassion makes you a lotus. You start rising above the muddy
world of desires, greed, anger. Compassion is a transformation of your energies.
Ordinarily you are scattered, fragmentary. Some energy is being absorbed by your
anger, some energy is being absorbed by your greed, some energy is being
absorbed by your lust, and so on and so forth. And there are so many desires
surrounding you that you are left without any energy; you are left hollow,
empty.

And remember what William Blake says - there is great insight in it - he says,
"Energy is delight." And you don′t have any energy left; all your energy keeps
on going down the drain. When all these energies are no longer being wasted they
start filling your inner lake, your inner being. You become full. A great
delight arises in you. When you start overflowing, you have become a Buddha and
you have come upon an inexhaustible source.
Compassion is a key word, but you will understand it only if you go deep into
meditation. Meditation is the key to transform passion into compassion. You will
have to become more conscious. Right now you are unconscious - notwithstanding
what you think, you are unconscious.

A girl taking a job in an office is asked by her intended employer how much
she hopes to earn.
"Twenty dollars a week," she answers.
"Twenty dollars?" he says. "I′ll give you that with pleasure."
"With pleasure, that will be thirty dollars," she replies.

Watch what you do, what you say, what you think, and you will be surprised:
without taking any alcoholic beverages, without taking any drugs, you are in a
mess.

Mrs O′Brien was berating her husband for his drunken behavior at the party
the previous night.
"Sure, and you were making an ass of yourself," she asserted, "cavorting around
like that!"
"I was not cavorting or nothing!" O′Brien defended himself. "I was walking as
straight a line as any man there... till all those people started stepping on my
fingers!"

Just look at what you have been doing to yourself, to your life. What have
you made of yourself? What have you gained? What meaning have you attained? What
significance have you experienced? People don′t ask such embarrassing questions
because then they feel very depressed. But these questions have to be asked.
Unless you ask these questions you are not going to change.

An Irish immigrant walked up to a vending machine, put in a coin, and pressed
the button labelled "Coffee, double cream, sugar". No cup appeared. Then two
nozzles went into action, one sending forth coffee, the other, cream. After the
proper amounts had gone down the drain where the cup should have been, the
machine turned off.
"Now, that′s real automation!" the Irishman exclaimed. "This thing even drinks
it for you."

Man goes on living like a robot, functioning well, efficiently. In fact, the
more like a robot you are, the better you function, the better the society feels
with you - because it is a society of robots. To be awakened, alert, conscious
here is dangerous. It is a society of blind people; to have eyes is to invite
danger.
But without creating consciousness you will never be able to know the beauty,
the blessing that God has bestowed upon you. You will never know the great
opportunity that has been given for you to grow, to become. You can be sunlit
peaks and you are just dark holes!

"Shit!" said Polaris. "I got a real jolt in court this morning. The judge
fined me five hundred dollars for attempting to rape some broad I met on the
subway. And then when he took a good look at her he fined me an extra ten
dollars for being drunk!"

If you become alert to at least one thing - that you are not alert - that′s a
great beginning.

Even if you are aware of that much - that you are drunk - you are not
absolutely drunk.
Socrates says, "If you know that you don′t know, that is a great beginning. Then
it is possible for you to know." To be aware that "I am ignorant" creates the
possibility of seeking, searching in your own interiority for the truth - for
your truth.
Compassion is the ultimate transformation of passion. You are in passion, but
you go on thinking that you are right as you are. You go on defending yourself.
And anything that disturbs your comfortable, mechanical life, you go against.
One visitor has written to me: "Your medicine seems to be too bitter. Are you
sure, Osho, that you are a physician and not a horse doctor?" When I look at all
the monkeys and the donkeys and the Yankees surrounding me, I wonder myself! I
must be a horse doctor. The medicine is bitter and it is difficult to push it
down your throat.

I have heard:

Mulla Nasruddin went to the horse doctor and said "My horse has become so
lazy that something has to be done. He does not run. He does not even walk! What
to say about running? So give me something really vital."
The doctor said, "We have the medicine, but it is very bitter and the horse may
not take it, so you will have to use a certain device. Take this bamboo pipe, it
is hollow within. Fill it with the medicine - it is a powder." He gave the
powder. "Put one end of the pipe into the horse′s mouth and the other in your
own mouth and then blow so that it will go down the horse′s throat."
Everything went well up to the last moment... the horse blew first! Nasruddin,
an eighty-year-old man, jumped the fence of his garden and ran so fast that no
Olympic runner would have been able to compete with him.
His wife rushed to the horse doctor. She said, "Give me a double dose
immediately because I have to catch him! He has escaped!"

Looking at you, I can only say that I must be a horse doctor. But I take
every care so that you cannot blow before I blow!
The medicine is bitter because the first thing to be understood is that you
don′t know anything. It is bitter to accept. The second thing: you are a
machine. It is very bitter to accept. The third thing: you are just living in
mud, crawling into dark holes, while you are meant to be flying into the sky
towards the sun. It is hard to accept. You want lullabies, you want me to sing
beautiful songs to you so that you can fall asleep, so that you can dream better
dreams.
When you come to me you don′t come to be awakened, you come to me so that you
can dream beautiful, sweet dreams. That is your purpose in coming; that is not
my purpose in being here. Once you are here you are caught. Then, slowly slowly,
I start taking your dreams away. Then, slowly slowly, I go on destroying your
illusions. Once your illusions are dropped, your dreams shattered, a great
awakening is waiting for you - a great awakening which makes you a Buddha.
And when you are a Buddha, only then will you experience what compassion is. It
is cool love - not cold, mind you - cool love. It is a sharing of your joy with
the whole of existence. You become a blessing to yourself and a blessing to the
whole existence. That is compassion. Passion is ugly, compassion is beautiful.
Passion is a curse, compassion is a blessing.